Thursday, 17 August 2017

For decades, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has resisted giving
the army control of combat aviation assets, especially attack helicopters,
which the air marshals have insisted on keeping firmly under their control.

Even as the army began operating light utility helicopters
and established its own Army Aviation Corps, the IAF retained control of medium
and heavy helicopters (Russian Mi-17 and Mi-26) and attack helicopters (Mi-35).

The IAF’s predominance in helicopters was underscored in
September 2015, when $3 billion worth of helicopters – 22 Boeing AH-64E Apache
attack helicopters and 15 CH-47F Chinook heavy lift choppers – were handed over
to the IAF, overruling the army’s arguments that attack helicopters, which are
an integral part of the ground battle, should be flown by army aviation pilots.

On Thursday, in a landmark decision, the defence ministry’s
apex procurement body, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), chaired by
Defence Minister Arun Jaitley, cleared the Army Aviation’s first attack
helicopters –a Rs 4,168 crore purchase of six Apaches, including associated
equipment, spares, training, weapons and ammunition.

While the IAF will use its 22 Apaches for “air defence
operations”, to take out enemy radars and command and control centres; the
army’s Apaches would destroy enemy tanks and armoured vehicles on the
mechanized battlefield.

It is understood the IAF has let go of the new batch of six
Apaches with some reluctance, calculating that the air force budget – already
strained because of the Euro 7.8 billion purchase of 36 Rafale fighters – could
not sustain the added financial burden of more attack helicopters.

The army’s Apaches will only be delivered from 2020 after
Boeing delivers the IAF its 22 choppers. Probably before that, Army Aviation
would have inducted the first of its Light Combat Helicopters (LCH), which is
at an advanced stage of development in Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL).

Like the Apache, the LCH will be flown by both the IAF and
the army. The LCH is a 5-tonne-class helicopter, significantly smaller than the
heavily armoured and armed Apache. It is untested in combat, while the Apache
has flown a million mission hours in combat from the first Gulf War in 1991 to
the ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the LCH is optimized
for extreme altitudes, and for providing fire support to soldiers at heights up
to 6,000 metres.

Besides the Apaches, the DAC cleared the Rs 490 crore
purchase of gas turbine engines from Ukraine for two Grigorovich-class frigates
that Russia is building for the Indian Navy.

The two frigates, which form part of a $4 billion order for
four such frigates, are almost fully built in Russia’s Yantar Shipyard at
Kaliningrad, on the Baltic Sea. With relations between Russia and Ukraine at
rock bottom after Moscow’s annexation of the Crimea, it has fallen to New Delhi
to buy the Ukrainian gas turbines that the Grigorovich class frigates were
designed to be powered by.

Negotiations are under way for building two of the four
frigates in Goa Shipyard Ltd, under the Make in India programme. The purchase
of gas turbines for those vessels will be cleared subsequently.

In an environment where large corporations with
no experience in building defence equipment – such as the Adani and Anil Ambani
Groups – are hoping to be chosen by the defence ministry as “strategic
partners” for defence manufacture, Dynamatic Technologies Ltd (DTL) is a
rarity: a company that has incrementally developed the capability to design and
manufacture military equipment; in pursuit of a clear aim to graduate into the
manufacture of military aircraft.

Last month, on the sidelines of Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel, DTL signed a partnership with Israel
Aerospace Industries (IAI), a global leader in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
DTL plans to leverage this partnership to become an Indian “systems integrator”
– the entity at the apex of a manufacturing chain, which integrates assemblies
and sub-assemblies built by Tier-1 and Tier-2 suppliers into a final product.

Manufacturing state-of-the-art UAVs, like
the “medium altitude long endurance” system that India’s military is buying, is
only a waypoint for DTL. Eventually, the company – which already builds
one-sixth of the fuselage of the Sukhoi-30MKI, and one-fifth of the Tejas
fighter’s fuselage for Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) -- aims to become a full-scale
systems integrator of sophisticated combat aircraft.

Towards this end, DTL has proceeded
systematically. From manufacturing precision-engineered hydraulic pumps in the
1980s, to aerospace grade components in the 1990s, to aerospace assemblies
later that decade, to major aerospace assemblies today, DTL believes the next
logical step towards building sophisticated aerospace systems is to be a
systems integrator for UAVs – flying platforms, but less complex than manned
combat aircraft.

“We believe this is the logical moment to
transition up the value chain to become a systems integrator. En route to
building complete fighter jets or bigger aerospace systems, we believe that UAV
development and integration is realistic and achievable for Dynamatic”, says the
company’s chief executive, Udayant Malhoutra.

“In my mind, we are
working to become the private-sector HAL of tomorrow”, he emphasizes.

To assess DTL’s ambitions and capabilities,
Business Standard visited its brand new manufacturing location – a 27.5-acre
facility at Devanhalli, adjoining Bengaluru’s new international airport, where the
UAV line will come up. Capable of housing half a million square feet of hangar
space, Devanhalli is accessible by
large cargo trucks and provides ready access to the airport.

At nearby
Doddabalapur, DTL owns a large research farm that could be converted to
manufacture later, if required.

With DTL’s long-standing facility at
Peenya, outside Bengaluru, running short of space, the manufacture of
flap-track beams for Airbus’ A330 wide-body airliners has already been shifted to
Devanhalli, along with the assembly of Bell-407 cabins for Bell Helicopters.

Meanwhile, DTL’s Peenya plant continues
manufacturing flap-track beams for every one of the 54 single-aisle airliners
(A318, A319, A320 and A321) that Airbus assembles each month; and also components
for Boeing’s P-8I maritime aircraft and CH-47E Chinook helicopters.

In contrast to the relatively stable income
from global aerospace manufacturers, DTL would be in uncertain territory in UAV
manufacture. The company visualises a market opportunity in India of about
5,000 UAVs for military and civilian uses but, so far, there are only three
“requests for information” (RFIs) issued by the military, for which the DTL-IAI
combine will have to compete with global UAV manufacturers.

This includes an RFI issued last year for
150 MALE UAVs for the three services; a 2015 enquiry for 50 Naval Shipborne
Unmanned Aerial Systems (NSUAS) for use from large ships for surveillance of
coastal waters and India’s exclusive economic zone; and a 2015 RFI for 600
mini-UAVs for the army’s infantry battalions.

DTL has experience in UAVs, having
participated in the DRDO’s programme to build the Lakshya pilotless vehicle. In
2015, DTL signed a “teaming agreement” with US company, AeroVironment, to
co-develop the Cheel UAV – which is one of six pilot projects designated during
US President Barack Obama’s visit to India. However, no orders have resulted
from that initiative.

Even so, Malhoutra
remains bullish about the opportunities for UAVs, particularly in civilian
applications. He cites the potential for low-cost UAVs for crop spraying or as
airborne sensors to gauge soil conditions. Pointing to DTL’s long experience in
agriculture (70 per cent of all Indian tractors incorporate DTL’s hydraulics),
he forecasts: “UAVs will initially come in for military applications, but will
find sustainable value mainly from the civilian market.”

Wednesday, 16 August 2017

Eight
Tejas to roll out this year; heavily outsourced to private sector

By Ajai
Shukla

HAL,
Bengaluru

Business Standard, 16th Aug 17

Since
December 2013, when the indigenous Tejas fighter was operationally cleared to
join the Indian Air Force (IAF), Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has
struggled to establish an assembly line that could build the homegrown light fighter
quickly and cheaply.

With just
three Tejas delivered until this year out of the 20 ordered in 2013, the IAF’s complaint
that the Defence R&D Organisation (DRDO) had taken too long in development
gave way to the charge that HAL was not building the fighter fast enough to
replace the IAF’s retiring MiG fighters.

HAL’s manufacturing
shortfall became even starker last November, when the defence ministry cleared
the acquisition of 83 more Tejas 1A fighters. This successor to the Tejas Mark
1, with four specified capability improvements, is required to enter production
in 2019. This plan hinges on establishing a high-capacity assembly line.

Now,
finally, HAL’s Tejas assembly line in Benguluru is meeting its targets. On a
visit by Business Standard to the Tejas assembly line, HAL chief T Suvarna Raju
has confirmed that eight Tejas fighters will roll off the line this year – the
rated capacity of the assembly line.

Furthermore,
with an additional investment of Rs 1,231 crore sanctioned for enhancing
capacity, the Tejas line is projected to build 10 fighters in 2018-19; and 16 Tejas
Mark 1As each year from 2019-20 onwards.

Thereafter,
the line is expected to build the Tejas Mark II fighter, an advanced variant of
the Tejas with a more powerful General Electric F-414 engine and upgraded
avionics.

Outsourcing
to private defence firms has been key to achieving HAL’s production targets.
“HAL is now focusing mainly on putting together large assemblies that are built
and supplied by private aerospace companies. That has allowed us to speed up
work exponentially”, says Raju.

HAL has
created five “Tier-1” suppliers that each build a part of the Tejas. The front
fuselage is supplied by Dynamatic Technologies Ltd, Bengaluru; the centre
fuselage by VEM Technologies, Hyderabad; rear fuselage by Alpha Tocol,
Bengaluru; wings by Larsen & Toubro, Coimbatore; and the tail fin and
rudder by National Aerospace Laboratory and Tata Advanced Materials Ltd.

Each of
these Tier-1 suppliers sources components and sub-assemblies from lower-order
Tier-2 and Tier-3 suppliers, creating an aerospace industry around the Tejas.

In
addition, a range of equipment is sourced from other private firms that are
emerging as players in the aerospace realm: avionics racks and air intakes from
Lakshmi Machine Works, Coimbatore; electrical panels from Amphenol, Pune; slats
and elevons from Aequs, Belgaum; pipelines from Rangson, Mysore, and precision
mechanical assemblies from Sri Koteswara Cam Systems, Secunderabad.

HAL plans
to eventually outsource 69 per cent of the production of Tejas structural
modules, with just 31 per cent of the work done in-house – consisting mainly of
assembly and equipping work.

A visit by
Business Standard to the Tejas production hanger reveals the most
technologically advanced production line that HAL has ever set up –
significantly more high-tech than the Hawk advanced jet trainer line that was established
with BAE Systems.

The
production jigs, on which Tejas components are fabricated, are calibrated with
lasers to an accuracy of 50-80 microns (one micron is one-thousandth of a
millimeter). This ensures repeatability, which means that every component
coming off a jig is precisely the same, and can be switched across aircraft.

There are
also robotic machines to drill the thousands of holes that are required in each
Tejas’ carbon “skin”. These robots drill in two days what manual drillers
earlier took two months to do.

“It earlier
took us 19 months to build a Tejas, from start to finish. This is now down to
11 months, and we will be building each Tejas in nine months by September this
year”, says Raju.

HAL’s plan
for expanding Tejas production to 16 fighters per year involves establishing a
second assembly line. This has physically replaced the Hawk trainer line that
is close to completing delivery of its orders.

The cost of
Rs 1,231 crore is being half-funded by HAL, with the IAF and navy picking up
the tab for the other half.

Tuesday, 15 August 2017

Seventy
years after independence, Indian policymakers continue fumbling ineptly in administering
our frontiers, resulting in unabated tensions in strategic border states like
Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), Manipur and Nagaland. Now here is a book with
lessons for our mandarins: A detailed account of how newly-independent India –
administratively inexperienced, resource-starved and preoccupied with problems with
Pakistan over J&K – established its writ over the North East Frontier
Province (NEFA) – today the state of Arunachal Pradesh, peopled by staunchly
committed citizens of India.

Why did New
Delhi feel the need to quickly consolidate its presence in the wild and
unexplored borderlands of the Eastern Himalayas, which the British had largely left
alone, categorising it an “Excluded Area”? Since NEFA was a territorial entity not
administered by the British colonial state, its accession to India was
problematic; New Delhi needed to explicitly exert jurisdiction. But with China
simultaneously consolidating its control over Tibet, including its outlying
Kham and Amdo areas, the two Asian giants shared a border for the first time in
history. The author’s thesis, which runs through the book, is that India and
China, in asserting control over their new territories, acted as “shadow
states” to each other – with state-making and nation-building playing out as a
contest for the allegiance of border people. As she puts it, this “turned into
processes of mutual observation, replication and competition to prove
themselves the better state – becoming in short, anxiety-fuelled attempts at
self-definition against one another.”

Berenice
Guyot-Rechard, who teaches history at King’s College, London, has comprehensively
mined archives in London, New Delhi, Guwahati and Itanagar and a wealth of
primary and secondary sources to tell the story of India’s entry into NEFA. She
recounts the halting decision-making, first by the British in pre-1947 India
and then by the new Indian state to enter NEFA; the difficulties faced by
administrators as they inched into terra incognita, and the constant paring of aims
and objectives due to sheer lack of resources. In contrast, China moved with relative
authority into Tibet, cajoling, co-opting and coercing the Tibetan people in
eventually establishing Beijing’s authority over that vast territory.

Ms Guyot-Rechard
postulates that, through these processes of state building, both New Delhi and
Beijing were acutely aware of being watched and compared by the border
populations who were, given the porous borders, highly mobile and able to switch
sides to where they assessed the better opportunities lay. With both sides
insecure about the other’s “pull” over the border people, competitive “state
shadowing” eventually led to war.

The most
interesting chapters describe India’s travails in pushing administration
forward to the McMahon Line border, frequently having to backtrack after
outrunning material and manpower resources. The author describes the mechanisms
that frontier officials established to communicate with the locals – “political
interpreters”,“gaonburas” (headmen) and “dobashis”
(interpreters); and the sophisticated ways that locals exploited these conduits
to suit their own ends. Ultimately, it was local participation that determined
the success or failure of administrative consolidation, since local cooperation
was essential for navigating the trackless mountains, finding water sources,
obtaining porters, re-supplying posts and a myriad of other functions. As the
author put it, “[T]he reach of the Indian state went in many places only so far
as the feet and backs of tribal men and women would take it.”

A select
cadre of frontier officials that New Delhi specially recruited for NEFA,
Nagaland and other border areas, spent weeks “hiking at a snail’s pace around
the countryside”. True, but the author – biased, perhaps, by comparison with
China’s more purposeful consolidation – is unkind in her descriptions. The
speed at which the officials trekked through their jurisdictions indeed
constrained the area they could cover. But it gave them a worm’s eye view of
the areas they moved through and the time to internalise that unfamiliar
environment. India’s establishment of an administration with limited resources
and expertise was, at one level, a bumbling, amateurish exercise worthy of
ridicule. But it was also a feat of determination that, against all odds,
eventually led to success.

Many would
regard China as the unquestioned victor in projecting itself in the borderlands
as a state – both in establishing a functional administration and, in the ultimate
display of state capability, in waging war. Yet, as the author herself notes,
the weakness of the Indian state made it more acceptable to NEFA than the
all-powerful Chinese state. If, during the 1962 war and in two months of
Chinese occupation after fighting ended, Beijing had demonstrated its
capability to win and to effectively administer the same area that India had
struggled to govern, the local population also figured that they had very
little control over what exactly Beijing chose to deliver. The author assesses:
“Arguably, [China’s] demonstration of invincibility, impeccable efficiency, and
self-sufficiency had been too convincing
(italics in original)… The Indian state, by contrast, was fragile and
imperfect; but its tensions, its vulnerabilities, its reliance on the
population, and perhaps its focus on relief and rehabilitation offered [the
local people] more space to negotiate, criticise and make demands.”

Ms Guyot-Rechard’s
fine book will be a reference work for all students of Sino-Indian relations.
Finely judged and elegantly written, the book is illustrated with numerous
photographs of that time and several extremely useful maps. Usefully, footnotes
are placed at the bottom of each page, saving the reader the bother of leafing
back and forth. My only production complaint is an insufficiently readable font
– darker would have been better.